Jun 27 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
South Dakota put abortion bans on the ballot several times, and each time the initiative was soundly rejected by voters: In 2006, lawmakers passed a bill banning almost all abortions, which Gov. Mike Rounds signed. It set off a brutal campaign that became the dominant issue in a busy election year that featured a g...
Jun 26 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
People often suggest that a fast growing economy is inflationary. I would argue that exactly the opposite is true. Consider this data for Venezuela and Singapore from an old Robert Barro textbook: Venezuela (1950-90): Average RGDP growth = 4.4% Average inflation = 8.0% Singapore (1963-89): Average RGDP...
Jun 25 2022
By:
Pierre Lemieux
A widespread belief is that the political system must be responsive to voters’ demands. But this is not obvious at all. Consider the following statement in the Wall Street Journal’s report on the adoption of a gun control bill by Congress (“House Expected to Approve Landmark Gun Legislation,” June 24, 2022): T...
Jun 25 2022
By:
Michelle Bernier
Corporate law as a subject has significantly changed in recent years. These changes have led to an exhaustive review of the systems, procedures, and standards of corporate stability, governance, control, and democracy as elements of analysis and starting points for generating modern responses to the various challenges ...
Jun 25 2022
By:
David Henderson
University of California President Michael V. Drake, M.D., issued a statement yesterday on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. He starts as follows: For nearly 50 years, people in the United States have had the right to make private, informed choices abou...
Jun 25 2022
By:
David Henderson
Imagine that in January 2021 you bought 100 shares of a company at $100 per share. Since then, the consumer price index, one of the standard measures of inflation, has risen by 11.74 percent. Coincidentally, the stock price has kept pace with the inflation rate, rising from $100 to $111.74. Your shares are now worth $1...
Jun 24 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
In the late 2010s, I frequently had to deal with commenters who complained about Fed policy. They echoed President Trump's complaints that the Fed was holding back the economy. Inflation was slightly too low. They felt there was unused potential. They had all sorts of grand ideas for reforming Fed policy. Le...
Read this Pierre Lemieux Liberty Classic
Jun 4 2018
By Pierre Lemieux
When the dust settles, Anthony de Jasay's The State1 will probably be recognized as one of the great books of the 20th century. It may be the most serious and subversive challenge to state authority ever written. That this book is not banned must be proof that we are not living under real tyranny or at least under int...
Jun 24 2022
By:
David Henderson
Most discussion about the possibility of recession focuses on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies. But there are also factors on the supply side of the economy that may tip the U.S. economy into a recession. Among them are the tax and regulatory policies of the Biden administration. This is the opening paragraph...
Jun 23 2022
By:
Nathan Goodman
I recently reviewed Janek Wasserman’s book The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas for EH.net, the website of the Economic History Association. I enjoyed the book, which offers a very engaging history of the Austrian school of economics. One thing I appreciated about Wasserman...
Jun 23 2022
By:
David Henderson
Co-blogger Scott Sumner has written an excellent post on how a temporary cut in the federal gasoline tax (from its current 18.4 cents to gallon to zero) will cause the 4 effects he mentions. I think Scott leaves out a 5th effect that swamps his 4: it will increase Americans' demand for price controls on gasoline. ...
Jun 23 2022
By:
Pierre Lemieux
I don’t know wherefrom the strange idea comes that a slippery-slope argument is a kind of logical fallacy. It is an institutional or political-economy concept, not a logical one. Slippery slopes occurs in social affairs, and a contribution of economics is precisely to help determine when the logic of institutions---t...
Jun 22 2022
By:
Sarah Skwire
Rachel Swirsky concludes the author’s note to her new speculative fiction novella, January Fifteenth, with these observations. Money can make life easier, but it can’t solve everything. Adding money to a system with underlying problems won’t fix those problems on its own. After any massive change, some...
Jun 22 2022
By:
Scott Sumner
Suppose that you wish to achieve the following 4 objectives: 1. Helping Vladimir Putin win the war in Ukraine. 2. Worsening global warming. 3. Worsening the budget deficit. 4. Enriching oil refiners at a time when supply is constrained and they are already earning extraordinary profits. What is the m...
Jun 22 2022
By:
David Henderson
In one of the sessions of the one-day colloquium on Harold Demsetz, moderator Harry DeAngelo asked Joe Kalt, Bob Topel, and me to reminisce about Harold as a person and also about his contributions to us and to economics. In response to one of Harry DeAngelo's questions (at the 3:07:00 point,) Joe Kalt answered that...
Jun 21 2022
By:
David Henderson
Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, the two bloggers at Marginal Revolution, are rightly impressed with GiveDirectly. In a post yesterday, Alex points out that four economists started GiveDirectly. That's figuratively putting their money where their economists' mouths are because economists tend to believe that the most eff...